Feeding Dairy Cattle 



writer's direction about two years ago, may be of interest in 

 this connection. Mr. Houck wrote to the ten breeders and 

 feeders of the cows holding the highest yearly semi-official 

 records in each of the four leading dairy breeds, Holstein- 

 Friesian, Guernsey, Jersey and Ayrshire. He received 

 answers to twenty-two letters out of the forty. He tabu- 

 lated the results and found that the following feeds occurred 

 in the rations the following number of limes: 



Alfalfa hay 12 



Clover hay None 



Mixed hay 11 



Beets or mangels 18 



Com silage 17 



Pasture 11 



Carrots 9 



It is interesting to note that no one of the twenty-two 

 breeders reported the use of clover hay; it was either mixed 

 hay or alfalfa. Soiling crops were used in a few scattering 

 cases. Pasture of course shows many times in these reports 

 because these were reports on yearly record feeding. It 

 is not likely that pasture would constitute any great part 

 in the feeding for short time tests for seven or thirty days. 



For the concentrates used, we have the following record : 



Times 



Distillers' dried grains 14 



Gluten feed 16 



Wheat bran 22 



Hominy feed 9 



Oil meal 18 



Cottonseed meal 13 



Ground oats 16 



Corn meal 7 



Ground barley 5 



Dried beet pulp 9 



Unicorn dairy feed 1 



Molasses 2 



To the writer, these reports are very interesting and in a 

 later paper, it is proposed to give the mixtures used by sev- 

 eral of the feeders and breeders who have succeeded in mak- 

 ing large records both in short time and in long time tests. 

 It will be noticed that in the suggested mixture above those 

 feeds are used that are most often found in the rations of the 

 more successful feeders except that most of them, i6 out of 

 22, like to have ground oats in the mixture. The writer has 

 already suggested that it might be better to use ground oats 

 in place of a part of the wheat bran and hominy. Corn meal 

 is nearly as often used as hominy. Hominy is likely to give 

 better satisfaction. Dried beet pulp is used many times and 

 is particularly useful when wet up in case one does not have 

 mangels or beets. It can be used in place <if corn silage, 



Page Fifty-nine 



